The Mound of Sound

With that finding, BC Supreme Court judge Ian Pitfield ruled it would be unconsitutional for the Harper cryptos to shut down Vancouver’s safe injection site.

Thanks to Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria for shining a spotlight on a Simon Fraser University report that reveals how “terrorism” statistics have been gamed for nothing other than to make us all afraid – very afraid.

“The U.S. government agency charged with tracking terrorist attacks, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), reported a 41 percent increase from 2005 to 2006 and then equally high levels in 2007. Another major, government-funded database of terrorism, the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terror (MIPT), says that the annual toll of fatalities from terrorism grew 450 percent (!) between 1998 and 2006. A third report, the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), also government-funded, recorded a 75 percent jump in 2004, the most recent year available for the data it uses.

The Simon Fraser study points out that all three of these data sets have a common problem. They count civilian casualties from the war in Iraq as deaths caused by terrorism. This makes no sense. Iraq is a war zone, and as in other war zones around the world, many of those killed are civilians. Study director Prof. Andrew Mack notes, “Over the past 30 years, civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Bosnia, Guatemala, and elsewhere have, like Iraq, been notorious for the number of civilians killed. But although the slaughter in these cases was intentional, politically motivated, and perpetrated by non-state groups-and thus constituted terrorism as conceived by MIPT, NCTC, and START-it was almost never described as such.”

Including Iraq massively skews the analysis. In the NCTC and MIPT data, Iraq accounts for 80 percent of all deaths counted. But if you set aside the war there, terrorism has in fact gone way down over the past five years. In both the START and MIPT data, non-Iraq deaths from terrorism have declined by more than 40 percent since 2001. (The NCTC says the number has stayed roughly the same, but that too is because of a peculiar method of counting.) In the only other independent analysis of terrorism data, the U.S.-based IntelCenter published a study in mid-2007 that examined “significant” attacks launched by Al Qaeda over the past 10 years. It came to the conclusion that the number of Islam-ist attacks had declined 65 percent from a high point in 2004, and fatalities from such attacks had declined by 90 percent.

The Simon Fraser study notes that the decline in terrorism appears to be caused by many factors, among them successful counterterrorism operations in dozens of countries and infighting among terror groups. But the most significant, in the study’s view, is the “extraordinary drop in support for Islamist terror organizations in the Muslim world over the past five years.” These are largely self-inflicted wounds. The more people are exposed to the jihadists’ tactics and world view, the less they support them.

The University of Maryland’s Center for International Development and Conflict Management (I wish academic centers would come up with shorter names!) has released another revealing study, documenting a 54 percent decline in the number of organizations using violence across the Middle East and North Africa between 1985 and 2004. The real rise, it points out, is in the number of groups employing nonviolent means of protest, which increased threefold during the same period.

Why have you not heard about studies like this or the one from Simon Fraser, which was done by highly regarded scholars, released at the United Nations and widely discussed in many countries around the world-from Canada to Australia? Because it does not fit into the narrative of fear that we have all accepted far too easily.”

There you have it. The far-right Bush/Cheney/McCain/Harper gang keep telling us that we’re in a fight for the very survival of our civilization because they don’t dare acknowledge that Islamist jihadism is collapsing under its own weight. They can’t, make that won’t, tell us the truth because it undermines what Zakaria properly calls their “narrative of fear.”

Some unwitting air traveller in Japan just scored a bag of pot.

It happened at Tokyo’s Narita airport. A Japanese customs officer chose a suitcase at random and placed a bag containing 142 grams of cannabis inside. It wasn’t an attempt to plant dope on a traveller but an exercise to test the airport’s sniffer dogs’ ability to detect the contraband. Big problem #1 – the dogs couldn’t find it. Big problem #2 – the officer who planted the pot couldn’t remember which bag he’d put it in.

The officer has apologized. The pot remains – wherever, dude!

Thinking of natural disasters triggers some graphic images. Earthquakes in China, cyclones in Burma, tsuanmis in Indonesia – the stuff we see all too regularly on TV. The numbers sometimes seem staggering – 40,000 here, 150,000 over there, another 80,000 somewhere else.

At times it seems like a demented “flavour of the month” club. Whatever gets on the late news wins. That’s the disaster that will trigger our consciences and then our politicians’ response. Suddenly aircraft will be lined up to fly relief workers and supplies wherever – why wherever we happen to be looking at the moment. But what about all those places we don’t see, the people and places that don’t win the contest for network coverage?

A study just released by the Brookings Institute reveals that, when it comes to global natural disasters, we only see the tip of the iceberg:

“…every year for the past twenty years, more than 200 million people have been affected by natural disasters, most of which never make it to the nightly news in America. Yet the effects of even localized disasters are felt by affected families for years – long after the TV cameras have moved on to the next disaster.

…groups which were already vulnerable before the disaster tend to suffer disproportionately from the devastation. For example, globally, for every one adult male who drowns in a flood, there are 3-4 women who die. Most obviously, this is because in many countries girls are less likely to learn how to swim or climb trees than boys. Vulnerable groups also experience discrimination in the provision of assistance. In many camps where persons displaced by natural disasters live, food is — at least initially — more likely to go to healthy and strong men than to children or the disabled. And in New Orleans, it was the elderly, the immigrants and African-American communities who disproportionately suffered the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

Chances of surviving a natural disaster are much higher in developed countries than in developing ones. For example, in 1988, an earthquake registering 6.9 on the Richter scale hit Armenia, killing some 55,000 people and leaving 500,000 homeless. Less than a year later, in an even stronger earthquake, 7.1 on the Richter scale, hit San Francisco, California, killing 62 and leaving 12,000 homeless.

Climate change affects natural disasters, both sudden-onset environmental events and long-term phenomena such as sea level rises. In fact, the severity and frequency of disasters, particularly what are called hydrometerological disasters (cyclones, hurricanes, flooding, mudslides, drought) are increasing. Natural disasters will be with us for a long time. While we cannot control where an earthquake will strike or a cyclone will turn, we can strengthen our collective ability to respond to these disasters and to mitigate their worst effects. And given the projections of the impact of climate change on natural disasters, we have no time to waste.”

Read the full report here:

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0515_natural_disasters_ferris.aspx?emc=lm&m=215767&l=18&v=988319

On the subject of natural disasters, aftershocks that hit China today are reported to have caused the collapse of a staggering 420,000 homes. No estimate yet on the number rendered homeless.

Mad Max Bernier has finally wound up in the ditch. Turns out that his jilted girlfriend, Julie Couillard, did him in after all, not so much because of her tenuous former links with biker gangs but because Maxime left classified documents at her place. From the Toronto Star:

“…Bernier’s departure came just a few hours before Couillard was about to go on air at the French-language television station TVA to say that her former lover was careless with classified documents.”

What does this tell us about Bernier? Nothing we didn’t already know. He was (and presumably remains) a dolt, utterly unsuited to the lofty job of foreign affairs minister that Harper bestowed on him. The guy was a walking disaster from Ottawa to Kandahar.

What does this tell us about Harper? Plenty, although not much that we didn’t already know. Our Furious Leader isn’t very good when events force him off his script. It’s no wonder he’s such a “talking points” control freak. He should have dumped Bernier a long time ago when his blatant incompetence became public during his visit to Kandahar. That, however, would have meant conceding awfully poor judgment in the first place and you don’t readily get that sort of admission from Harpo.

Curious isn’t it that it wasn’t Maxie’s string of blunders that forced Harpo’s hand but the threat of a scorned woman’s revenge. Well, Stevie’s going to have to suck on this one for quite a while.

Here’s another thing that Mad Max illustrates about Hapless Harper – his caucus is razor thin on talent and, even then, he chooses really poorly. Look at the cast of flops and duds – Rona Ambrose, Gordy O’Connor, Johnny Baird, Tony Clements, Vic Toews and, of course, Maxime Bernier. If they’re his first picks, imagine Harper’s “B” team.

All things considered, it’s not such a bad thing that Harpo has run flat out of ideas. If he had’em, who would he appoint to implement them?

Docile, complacent, timid. Those words pretty much describe the Canadian media and how they’ve let down the people of this country as Comrade Stephen has forcefully insinuated himself between the Canadian government and the Canadian people.

You no longer have access to your government. You have access to Comrade Stephen and his minions, the political commissars of the PMO, the Prime Minister’s Office. Our Furious Leader and his faceless cadre will decide what you need to know about the federal government’s workings and that’ll be exactly what they want you to know and nothing more. Does that sound a little bit Stalinist to you? Well, yeah, it is. Does it seem undemocratic, un-Canadian even? It is and it’s a stain that taints everyone who supports the Harper government.

The Toronto Star is publishing a series this week called “Secret Capital”:

“In the 6th-floor office of a nondescript building sit the gatekeepers, the bureaucrats who decide what Canadians learn about the workings of their government.

Questions on the hot issues of the day all get funnelled through this office, the “communications and consultations” unit of the Privy Council Office, housed in the Blackburn building that fronts the Sparks St. pedestrian mall.

Throughout the government, it’s known simply as “downtown,” the place where decisions are made on who speaks on issues and what they say. In the Conservative government’s clampdown on communications, this is Ground Zero.

Public appearances by cabinet ministers – whether it’s a speech or an interview – are carefully staged, starting with a “message event proposal” vetted by the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic wing of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

And in a marked change from previous governments, now even basic demands for information from reporters, once easily fielded by department spokespersons, are sent to this office for review – and often heavy editing – before they are okayed for public release, government insiders say.

David Taras, a professor in the department of communications and culture at the University of Calgary said, ‘You can control events for so long, you can only manipulate for so long and ultimately I think this has harmed the Harper government to the extent that Harper’s image has become `Mr. Partisan, Mr. Mean, Mr. Control Freak,’

“It’s just got to a point where control is the image of what his government is. That’s damaging. … You wonder what they’re running from and what they’re afraid of,” he said.

The clampdown could get worse. Auditor-General Sheila Fraser recently revealed that the government is proposing a new policy that would require all communications “products” to be vetted by the Privy Council Office.

One government official said the new rules would formally enshrine in policy the unwritten rule that now exists.

“The screws are being tightened bit by bit. It’s gotten very extreme in the last six months. Just more and more delays, more and more control over things, less and less things getting approved,” the official said.”

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/429906

It’s time those who support Harper’s assault on Canadian democracy face up to their choice – defend Canada and our democracy or empower Harper.

As I’ve watched Hillary Clinton’s ill-fought campaign, particularly over the past six months, I’ve been struck at how she seems to have learned and adopted so many of the political tactics of the outgoing hooligan, George w. Bush. The Guardian’s Gary Younge lays it out beautifully:

“As the primary season draws to a close it has become increasingly apparent that Hillary Clinton has run her campaign with the same contempt for intelligence, decency and democracy that Bush has run the country. Like the Bush administration, her campaign has been sustained by cynicism, divisiveness and fear-mongering, leaving a toxic and rancorous rift in its wake. Like the White House, her aim has been to win at all costs. And like the White House, it has produced the same result. Failure.

It is a continuum not of policies – on that front she is closer to Barack Obama than either of them would concede – but a mindset that has served America ill these past seven years. Creating a bespoke reality out of whole cloth and then hoping people will not just buy it, but wear it.

In a last, desperate bid to resuscitate her campaign, Clinton will put her case for the ratification of the results of the Michigan and Florida primaries to the Democratic National Committee rules and bylaws committee later this week.

Both states held their primaries in January, in defiance of Democratic party rules. The party warned them beforehand that their delegates would be disqualified if they went ahead, and asked the candidates not to campaign there. The candidates obliged. The states went ahead anyway. Clinton won both. Her senior adviser, Harold Ickes, was on the committee that voted not to recognise them. Obama’s name was not even on the ballot in Michigan.

Back in October last year Clinton said uncomplainingly of Michigan: “It’s clear, this election they’re having is not going to count for anything.”

But then she won both. Now everything is different. Speaking before a crowd of senior citizens in Boca Raton, Florida, last week she went into metaphorical hyperbole, comparing the battle to seat the delegates from Florida and Michigan to the suffragettes, the civil rights movement and Zimbabwe – where more than 40 people have been killed in election-related violence. “We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe,” she explained to a crowd of senior citizens. “Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people. So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote.”

Clinton insists she is winning the popular vote. She’s right. But only if you tally votes with the same degree of selectivity as Robert Mugabe. For her claim to make sense, you would have to count the discounted Florida and Michigan primaries and discount the legitimate caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington state, three of which Obama won. These four states do not reveal popular vote totals. It’s like saying if you include your goals that were ruled offside and don’t recognise your opponents’ headers (it is football after all) then you really won the game.

The reason Clinton has had to resort to this sophistry reveals another trait she shares with Bush – hubris. She believed she would have the nomination sewn up by Super Tuesday. She woke up on the following Wednesday out of money, ideas and volunteers. It was a month and nine contests before she won again. By then the momentum was Obama’s and, though he has stumbled, he has been running with it since. By most reckonings he leads by about 190 delegates and 400,000 votes. Even if Michigan and Florida were counted, she would still trail in delegates.

And, like Bush, she has appealed to the basest instincts of the electorate to dig herself out of a hole. First came fear. “It’s 3am in the morning and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the telephone [in the White House],” went her ad.

Then there is racism. The most recent example of which was her claiming that Obama’s “support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again”, as evidence of her own viability. Later she would concede that equating “white” and “hard- working” was a “dumb comment”.

On Friday she was lambasted for intimating that she was staying in the race because, like Bobby Kennedy, Obama may yet be assassinated. It was clumsy. But a reasonable reading of the context shows she neither said nor meant anything of the kind. Her problem is that by now the general impression is that there is almost nothing she wouldn’t do or say. It would indeed take something that dramatic and tragic for her to win.

Like the Bush administration, the issue is no longer whether she leaves the stage with her reputation irreparably tarnished, but what state she leaves it in and how many people she is prepared to take with her.”

Big polluters in the West have really taken to carbon offset programmes. It’s nothing more than paying some government or corporation in the Third World to implement some form of GHG reduction programme to “offset” the excessive emissions of its Western patron. It’s what George Monbiot has described as moving food around on a plate.

What’s wrong with carbon trading? Nothing, in theory. In practise, however, there’s plenty wrong with it

A key problem is that it relies on the industrial polluter to fund a project that will actually result in a reduction of GHG emissions and that wasn’t already in the works anyway. It’s sort of like letting the banditos guard the stagecoach. From The Guardian:

“Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN’s main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

The criticism centres on the UN’s clean development mechanism (CDM), an international system established by the Kyoto process that allows rich countries to meet emissions targets by funding clean energy projects in developing nations.

A working paper from two senior Stanford University academics examined more than 3,000 projects applying for or already granted up to $10bn of credits from the UN’s CDM funds over the next four years, and concluded that the majority should not be considered for assistance. “They would be built anyway,” says David Victor, law professor at the Californian university. “It looks like between one and two thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts.”

Governments consider that CDM is vital to reducing global emissions under the terms of the Kyoto treaty. To earn credits under the mechanism, emission reductions must be in addition to those that would have taken place without the project. But critics argue this “additionality” is impossible to prove and open to abuse. The Stanford paper, by Victor and his colleague Michael Wara, found that nearly every new hydro, wind and natural gas-fired plant expected to be built in China in the next four years is applying for CDM credits, even though it is Chinese policy to encourage these industries.”

It may just be that there are not nearly enough legitimate CDM projects to meet the demands of Western emitters but, if that’s the case, there’s nothing to be gained from letting them manipulate the process. The UN needs to reform the process, perhaps by eliminating the brokers and taking in-house the job of identifying qualifying CDM investments.